BackStory
Back Story (not official) By Lao'tefang Part 1 - The Legend of the Titans Many ages had passed since the end of the first era of Magic. Very few beings remain that still remember how magic first entered the realm of man. It had long been believed that the elements of water, earth, and fire all contained magical properties that could be tapped into by those with a particular aptitude and ability to harness them. The first man to tamper with such powers was a man named Lucius Salarus. Lucius lived in a cave on an island that had been known for its volcanic activity. Conjuring flame, moving water, and shaping earth all became activities that Lucius would practice on a daily basis. It was his intention to come up its a spell that would combine the powers of all three elements and in some fashion to cross the streams. It was not until the seven-hundred and twentieth day of experimentation that progress was made. Once progress was set in motion though it could not be undone. The magical fusion of the elements grew in power and intensity over the following days. The tide peaked and crashed against the island with greater furor every day, like mountains of water colliding. Jets of fiery molten lava began to spew from the volcano that seemed to be losing its outer integrity at a frightening pace. Lucius did not know what he had done, but knew there was no way to reverse his actions. The pinnacle of activity arrived when streams of flame, water, and earth shot from all over the island through the energized air and penetrated the heart of Luscious. Lava spewed, the earth shook, and the island began to flood with rapidly flowing waters. Luscious emerged from the rubble, but he was no longer alone. Standing across from him was what looked like an exact mirror image. An exact replica of every feature Lucious possessed other than the fact that its body was covered with horrendous scars. Rising behind them in the rubble arose a gigantic monstrous beast of the size the realm had never seen before. A hydra with three heads stood high over the two figures. One head was a bright ocean blue, one head was a blazing bright red, and the third head was a brown as dark as the most hardened earth. This is where the dawn of the first era of magic began. The mirror image of Lucious, who came to be known as Antonius, traveled the world creating dungeons everywhere he went. The three headed hydra created a large army of titans who traveled to each of the major cities and created giant towers that reached into the very heavens. Lucious formed three orders to prepare for the turmoil that was occurring. The first order formed was an order of mages with a strong propensity towards using the fire magics. The second was an unorthodox group of towards well versed in the arts of manipulating the flows of water. The third was a group of people that had begun to practice with an experimental item that they called metal. The turmoil that was facing the world weighed heavy on the heart of Lucious. He looked everywhere he could to find some semblance of a solution but it alluded him at every turn. It was becoming more and more obvious that there would have to be a way to banish the three element hydra and and hope that this banishment would force the towers and dungeons far into the earth. Destruction of the beast was impossible. It contained the very being of the core elements of the realm. The only way to get rid of it would be to banish it to the core of the realm itself. One by one the orders took down the dungeons and the towers to the point that they believed they would be capable of performing the banishment. Once the ritual to banish the hydra had been performed Lucious vanished to the north and Antonius vanished to the south. The three orders went into secret seclusion and continued to perform their arts even after the end of the first era of magic. They knew their solution was temporary. They knew that they would have to be prepared for when the dungeons and towers returned under the rule of the hydra and its titans, and once again, the life of the realm would be magic. Part 2 - The Corruption of the Realm Isolated from the rest of the realm of man the hydra saw his banishment as a learning experience for he had a front row seat to observe what would become of the race of man once the end of the first era of magic came crashing down on them. Instead of becoming weak and frail from the banishment he became wise and knowledgeable. He watched and studied as the race of man degraded to a war faring society obsessed with material wealth and spreading their influence and power. The hydra also knew that its banishment would not be forever. There was no magic in the world that would be strong enough to keep him banished and as the magic started to drain from the realm more and more the weaker the hold on the hydra became. He knew that it would be ages before the spell would break but by the time it did there would be no common knowledge of what had occurred during the first era of magic other than by word of mouth through the original orders that had banished him. Being the incredibly intelligent being he had become the hydra knew that something would have to be done about the orders to keep them from banishing him again. The original order members that banished him may have been long gone but the oral tradition lived on strong. Even the strongest heart of man is corruptible to the greed of wealth and power though. He knew that this is where the down fall of the realm would be. The cocoon that had enveloped the hydra in banishment burst from ages of pressure with gradually degrading reinforcement like a strap of rubber stretched over a blade increasing in size. The very first task was to resurrect Antonius and to summon the titans. It looked as though his new ingenious plan was nothing but a mere resurgence of the first era of magic to the orders but there was something much more sinister looming in the plans for the hydra. It was not long before the realm was littered with dungeons and towers filled with nasty and vile creatures. There was something different this time. Treasure chests filled with wealth and items of power as wondrous as the mind could imagine cluttered the country side. Being somewhat two sides of the same coin the resurrection of Antonius did not occur without also bringing back Lucious and his first task was to reconnect communication with the orders in an attempt to conquer the towers, kill the titans, and banish the hydra again. Briefly it looked like the plan of the order was going just exactly as they wished it to. The orders were beginning to conquer dungeon after dungeon and they were beginning to make strong progress towards reaching the lairs of the titans in the towers. Everything was developing easily. It was developing too easily. The orders had become overly confident in their victories, claiming the treasures of the dungeons and towers for their own. It was not long before a powerful mage of the name Lyricalus charged into the lair of a titan and slayed it claiming its treasure for his own. Killing a titan, however, is a futile thing. Their souls are as eternal as the elements that they are bound to. Antonius and the hydra both knew this but the orders were too arrogant to realize it. Each time a titan was defeated a part of the soul of the adventurer that defeated it was sucked back into the spawning pool of the elements with it. Just like the hydra had planned it was not long before the heart of man was corrupted with greed and the need to claim the wealth to be found in the towers and dungeons only to find that they all had already been occupied again by more creatures and more titans. The quest for defeating titans and claiming wealth and power became all-encompassing to the point that banishment of the hydra was not even talked about any more. Greed and lust for power are both more powerful monsters than any other monster that could have occupied the realm. It was not long before order members started fighting each other to claim the title of who was the strongest and the most powerful to get themselves access to even more riches. Deep in the furthest reaches of the realm the hydra toiled away at bringing his great plan into fruition. Using each soul fragment sucked into the elemental spawning pool used as construction materials the hydra worked with a sleepless fervor that only an all-powerful immortal being could embody to build a tower the likes no mortal man could ever imagine. Violently crashing through the crust of the epicenter of the realm the tower shot up high. There was something different about this tower though. The tower was not occupied by monsters or demons. No, there were no monsters or demons at all. When Lucious first combined the elements Antonius was created by a portion of his soul being sucked into the spawning pool of the elements. Now that the spawning pool had been collecting soul fragments from each of the greatest champions of the realm they would have to face something they had never faced before, themselves.